


Soft

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-02-03
Updated: 2002-02-03
Packaged: 2018-11-21 00:09:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11345979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Just.yeah. No real plot. I kinda like the idea of Alex getting a puppy, so if you know about any stories like that, please tell me!





	Soft

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

Soft

## Soft

#### by Black Coffee

Title: Soft  
Author: Black Coffee  
Feedback to:   
Author's Website:   
Status: Complete  
Category: Pre-slash  
Pairing (Primary): Krycek (Pre/Non-slash)  
Pairing(s) (Secondary):   
Crossover Fandom (if any):   
Crossover Info (if any):   
Other Pairing Info:   
Rating: Not Rated  
Spoilers:   
Permission to Archive:   
Series or Sequel/Prequel:   
Notes: This little piece is un-beta&#8217;d which I know is a crime, but it was just something I felt like writing a while back and have put aside since then. So I should warn you that there may be mistakes in it. If it bothers you, skip it.  
Warnings:   
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and I make no money on this.  
Summary: Just.yeah. No real plot. I kinda like the idea of Alex getting a puppy, so   
if you know about any stories like that, please tell me!

* * *

It was a dog. Or rather, a puppy, barely a couple of weeks old by the looks of it. Soft fluffy (though currently rather dirty) fur and big eyes. A pup. Sitting in the corner, looking straight at him. 

Alex sighed. He moved carefully closer to the animal and held his hands out in front of him. He would have to try to get it out of there, out of his room. Not even beginning to try and guess how it got in there in the first place, Alex knew he had to do this as slow as possible, coaxing the animal out from under the chair. He didn't feel like doing any more chase-and-catch games tonight, all he wanted was to go to bed, so he would probably have to talk the animal out of there. But how? How does one actually talk to a dog? He decided he had to try something, and said, in what he hoped would be a non-threatening way. 

"Here, puppy! Come on, let's get you out of here. Come one, co..." 

The puppy had back further into the corner as Alex approach, hiding behind the leg of a chair, and now he sat still and watched Alex approach without making a sound. The big eyes look frightened, and the whole posture of the little dog told Alex that it wasn't about to come out of there on his own. He would have to drag it out. 

Bending down towards the leg of the chair, he wondered briefly if the dog would try to bite him. Animals did that when they where frightened, didn't they? 

Humans did too, sometimes. 

"Please don't bite me, puppy," he continued to say in the same calming high-pitched voice. "Because if you bite me, I'd have to shoot you, and I really don't want to shoot a puppy in my own place. No, I don't, and you don't want that either, do you?" 

This wasn't that hard. You just talked to it like you would to someone who was too frightened to understand what you said and who you had to calm down by body language alone. Like most people with a gun to their head acted. 

Calm, soothing reassurances. Slow, careful movements. Easy. 

He reached the puppy and felt fur against the tip of his fingers. He also felt the dog tense in every muscle it had. But still it didn't move, and Alex wondered briefly if it had been running from dangerous hands all of it's short life. Maybe it was tired of running and had finally lost any desire to do so. Well, he could sympathize with that. He felt his fingers get a stronger grip on the tense little body. Now all he had to do was pull it out of there. 

That would probably take more cooing. "Okay you," Alex half-sang to the animal as he started to - slowly - pulling it along the floor out from behind the chair. "Now let's see what you really look like. It's nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all. You just..." The puppy was almost all the way out now. "...stay still and don't bite and none of us will..." 

Suddenly, the dog made a loud squeaky sound and both it and Alex jumped two feet into the air. He lost his grip and the puppy used it's little paws to paddle across the floor and under the bed as quick as it's little legs could carry it. When Alex bent down to peer underneath the bed, he saw a trembling body and huge pleading eyes peer back at him. 

He sighed. Deeply. 

"Okay," he said softly. "Okay, listen, this is what we will do. I am tired and you obviously are too, so what do you say we both sleep on this and try to figure out what to do tomorrow morning? Sounds alright?" The animal's only reply was to lie down on the dusty floor with its head on its paws and miserable eyes fixed on Alex. Alex nodded, as if he had just been given an affirmation. "Good. Well, good night then." 

As he went to bed and put out the light, he could hear the dog breathing in the dark under him. 

* 

The next morning Alex got up and made breakfast. For a moment he thought the dog might have let itself out during the night, but when he bent down to look under the bed, big and awake eyes met his. He shrugged and finished drinking his coffee. 

The dog stayed under the bed all morning, and when Alex put on his jacket and shoes, he heard it shuffle around a little on the floor. When he turned his head, he saw the animal poke its head out and eye him warily. 

"That's right," he said, smiling at the sight of the dusty head. "I'm going out. You behave while I'm gone, okay? No parties or anything." He snickered to himself. The dog just stared at him, at his lips moving. "And if you need to, you know, go, you just get your ass back the same way you snuck it in here, okay? See ya!" 

He left. Still smiling to himself. 

* * *

It was well into the night when he got back. The apartment was pitch dark, but as he kicked off his shoes he knew he wasn't alone. Years of being on the run had made him develop an intuition for those things. He had learnt to trust his own instincts. It was the only way to feel safe. He stopped in his track and listened for a second. So the dog was still there. Oh well. 

He walked trough the apartment in the darkness and into the kitchen. In the light from the refrigerator he took out butter, ham and a coke, and then began spreading the butter on a couple of slices of bread. 

Suddenly he felt something touch his left leg, and when he looked down the dog was sitting beside him, nose only inches from Alex's jeans-clad leg. He looked down at the animal for a couple of seconds, bread in hand, and during those seconds the dog leant forward again and touched his nose lightly to him. "Hey..." As soon as he spoke, the dog drew back and hunched down, as if he expected to be hit. He was obviously still scared, small body all tense and trembling, but his hunger must have made him braver because he didn't run away when Alex reached down and held his hand out, two pieces of bread in his palm. "You hungry, puppy? You want this?" 

The dog stiffened, but then it took a step forward and put his nose into Alex's palm, immediately gulping down the bread. "Yeah, you must be starving. Want more?" 

Alex gave the dog all the bread he had taken out for himself, he didn't feel too hungry anyway, and when every bit was gone, the dog proceeded to lick his hand clean from crumbs. Alex couldn't help but smile as the wet tongue tickled him. "Was that good, huh? I bet it was." 

Now he felt how tired he was, and he stretched and yawned. "Okay. Time to go to bed." 

The dog followed him back into the other room and looked at him as he stripped and got in the bed. Alex turned underneath the warm blanket and met the huge eyes, still uncertain but at least not starving anymore. He made a decision. Patting the bed beside him, he said, "Wanna sleep in the bed? Huh? Better than the floor, isn't it? Come on!" 

The dog kept looking up at him, but didn't move. Alex sighed and turned the bed light off. "Fine. Good night." 

He had almost drifted off when he felt the mattress dip and a small fury body curl up next to him. There was a sniffle and a puff of air on his arm, and he smiled a little and fell asleep. 

* 

The puppy was still in his bed when he woke up the next morning, and he carefully patted the small head, played a little with the soft ears, and thought about that. 

For the next couple of days, the puppy slept in Alex's bed, ate from Alex's hand, and licked his hand after every meal. Alex even got a plastic bone that made squeaky sounds, and watched the puppy play with it for hours on his hard wooden floor. 

One night, he lay awake stroking the puppy's soft fur and listen to it yawn and make a content sigh, and he thought >I have a dog.<

Huh. 

* 

>Crash!<

The sound of something breaking and shattering on the floor was heard throughout the apartment, and then a door slammed shut and there were a couple of thuds, as if someone was punching something hard a couple of times. 

"You fucker!" 

"Mulder, I..." Another thud was heard, followed by a painful gasp. And then another. 

"You didn't think I would find you, did you? You little piece of fucking shit! You low-life cock-sucking scum, I'm gonna..." 

"Mulder!" 

Alex wasn't sure what had happened. One minute he had been sitting on his bed, getting ready to get undressed, playing fetch with his dog, and the next he was on the floor himself, half-leaning against the wall, lips bleeding and head ringing. 

Fox Mulder was standing over him, coat on, hands still clutched in fists, staring down at him. 

Alex swore. He couldn't believe he had let his guard down enough to be caught like that. And by Mulder of all people. Fuck! This was not good. 

"Alex Krycek," Mulder said, as to emphasize Alex's thoughts. "Your ass is mine." Alex tried to clear his mind, which was no easy task with his head hurting like that. Was Mulder there to kill him? Put him in jail? Drag him off to Skinner's apartment again? What? 

He saw the look in Mulder's eyes and decided he was there to kill him. "Mulder", he said, wincing at the pain in his back. "Mulder, I can give you information. Think about this. I show you what..." 

But Mulder wasn't looking at him anymore. He was staring down at the floor, where Alex now noticed the dog was standing, staring angrily at Mulder, teeth bare and a low growling continuously coming out from it's throat. Alex thought dizzily that the little thing probably couldn't scare anything as big and well armed as Mulder, but felt a sudden happy flash at knowing it would try its best to. Because of him. Wow, I think I have made a friend in the animal world, he thought, almost having to suppress a giggle from escaping him as he watched Mulder carefully take a step closer to the dog, which didn't budge. 

The damn dog really loves me, Alex thought. And it's a real brave little fucker too. 

Mulder was standing still on the floor, peering down at the dog, then turning to look back at Alex's bleeding and crouching form, and asked, "You have a dog, Krycek?" 

Alex had to take a couple of deep, painful breaths before he could answer, his ribs hurting like hell. "Yeah, you know, for protection from bastards like you." 

Mulder gave the small, growling dog another long gaze, then took a step away from it, holding his hands down in a sort of I'm-backing-off gesture. "Shhh, doggie, I'm not gonna hurt you." 

Alex felt another fit of the giggles threaten to break out. "Hm, well, he seems to worry more about you hurting >me<." 

Mulder gave him a surprised look, obviously thinking the same thing as he himself did a few minutes ago. "You actually made a friend, Krycek?" 

Alex pulled himself up in a sitting position, leaning his head against the wall behind him. The side of his head was throbbing now. "Guess so." 

Mulder seemed a bit thrown, as if the mere existence of something that cared for Alex made him forget why he had come to the apartment in the first place. Alex, feeling tired and not wanting to watch this draw out any longer, couched and said, "Finish it now, Mulder, so you can get out of here." 

Mulder was not looking at him when he absently answered, "I'm in no hurry." 

"Well, I am." At this, Mulder finally let the dog go and paid Alex his full attention. Alex smiled what he knew must be a pathetic smile. His face hurt too. "Don't make me have to sit and wait for it," he whispered meeting the hard brown eyes above him. He almost added "please", but decided that no matter what happened, he would not beg for his own end. He decided he wasn't that pathetic, after all. 

Mulder frowned, stared down at him and didn't seem to know exactly what to do. He tapped the gun lightly against his leg, frowned some more and shifted his eyes quickly around the non-furnace room as if looking for something. The gun swayed a little in his hand. It hung low enough to take up the whole focus of Alex's eye-span. He began to rethink his earlier decision. About not being pathetic. 

Then Mulder said, in a tone which almost sounded conversational. "So...What's its name?" 

Alex closed his eyes momentarily, wanting the mind numbing pain behind them to let up for just one second so he could try to make some sense of the situation. What game was Mulder playing this time? "What?" 

"Your friend here? What's it called." 

Alex shook his head. "Fuck you." 

"That's not a very good name for a puppy." 

Alex spat. Repeated the words again, this time in Russian. Mulder raised an eyebrow and looked down at him curiously. 

"You don't want to tell me?" 

Alex swallowed, winced and again wanted Mulder to shut the fuck up and just end it. He was tired. What was Mulder talking about now? Couldn't he see that Alex was hurting and waiting and could he just get on with it? 

Mulder rolled his eyes a little. "Don't tell me it's Fluffy or something!" 

"W-what?" 

He rolled his eyes some more. Alex felt his face heat up. "It's Alex." He finally mumbled, trying to wipe some blood off his lower lip at the same time. It hurt like hell. Mulder snorted beside him. 

"You named your dog Alex? Like yourself?" 

The tone in his voice just helped to piss Alex off even more. He wasn't sure why it got to him, what he said, but somehow the idea that he was taunting his dog, and his decisions about his dog, made Alex see red. 

"Yes, his name is Alex and could you fucking drop it and just do what you came here to do. I have no interest in hearing what name you would give a dog if you had one." 

How could he explain it to Mulder anyway? How do you explain the small pleasure of hearing your own name spoken aloud a few times every day? Even if it was you yourself who said it? 

Mulder looked at him funny again. When Alex tried to shift so that his ribs wouldn't hurt so much, he took a step back, as if to give Alex room. Then, when he wiped at his split lip again, Mulder dug out a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to him. Alex took it. 

Then Mulder sat down beside him. Looked around the small room once more. Looked at Alex's dog. Looked at Alex. 

Put down his gun. 

"So," he said, face blank and expressionless. "You have a dog." 

* 

The end 

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Black Coffee 


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